[ad_1]
Do you want to do something that can lower your risk of injury, improve your posture and improve your quality of life?
Take a stopwatch and stand on one foot for 30 seconds. Then do the same with the other leg.
It’s a simple way to improve your balance. And better balance means better posture and fewer fall injuries, which the World Health Organization says is the leading cause of accidental death in the world, after car accidents.
Our balance is much worse than before.
We used to spend a lot of the day moving, now a lot of us sit and watch screens. This more sedentary lifestyle affects our ability to balance and that has a price.
The good news is that there are things you can do to improve it, like standing on one foot, which studies have found to be beneficial for your body and brain.
Quite a feat
Balance is an incredible achievement.
Being able to walk upright or do something more complex like run or jump requires your brain to coordinate remarkably well.
Integrate signals from the fluid in your inner ears, visual signals from the eyes, and even feedback from joints and muscles, which they tell you where is your body in space.
Balance is what lets you move around the world with confidence and even lets you do different things without thinking, like running while keeping your basketball from being taken from you.
“Unfortunately, we started to lose our ability to stand for about the age of 35-40And in fact, sometimes before that, ”Dawn Skelton, exercise physiologist at Caledonian University in Glasgow, Scotland, told the BBC.
Balanced
As we age, our muscles tend to weaken and our brains are not as good as they used to be at integrating these sensory signals to effortlessly make those small adjustments that make balance possible.
Balance structures, the number of hair cells decrease, and even the amount of blood flow entering your inner ear begins to change.
The loss of this ability can not only lead to falls, with serious consequences, it can also make us feel insecure.
“The fear of falling leads to the fear of moving and this can isolate you socially, which is not good for your mental health,” explains the physiologist.
And if you think you still have a long way to go have to start worrying about it …
“With each generation we are a little less active, although it seems odd because we all have these patterns of physical activity.
“What happens is that balance requires that you are simply standing and interacting regularly with your surroundings. And, no matter how old you are, we spend a lot more time with our screens.
“You start to see evidence that the balance deteriorates a bit with each generation,” says Skelton.
But there are things you can do to overcome this inevitable decline, because it’s never too late to change, and you can quickly regain your balance.
How? ‘Or’ What? challenge him.
This is all about introducing brief moments of instability into your daily life, either by doing activities that challenge your balance system, like Tai Chi, or simply by standing on one foot.
welcome flicker
Our brain’s balancing system has an incredible ability to compensate by creating new nerve connections.
It is the plasticity of our brains that keeps us upright and gives us the potential to continue improving our balance even though we feel like we have succumbed to a life of inevitable stumbles.
The trick is to continues to falter.
Whenever you train while standing on one foot, this is an opportunity to recalibrate your brain, form new connections and strengthen coordination between the ears, eyes, joints and muscles.
Sensors in all of our joints and muscles continue to send information to the brain so that it can learn the best way to stand.
If you try, you will find that your balance can improve surprisingly quickly.
And it can have a huge impact on your life.
Not only does this strengthen your core, posture, and coordination, but you’ll likely be walking upright rather than hunched over, which will make you look younger and may improve your mood as well.
So if you want to stay active into old age, it’s a good idea to sharpen your balance.
Get up
Balance exercise is also great for building core strength and body alignment.
If you work at home, this is a great way to break up your sedentary day and help correct postural imbalances that can arise just from sitting.
The simple act of standing has been shown to have a profound impact on your physical health.
If you supplement it with balance exercises, you will get double the benefits.
Keep challenging yourself
Did you manage to stand on one foot without a problem? Now, close your eyes.
Eye signals play an important role in maintaining balance, helping to explain why it is much more difficult to stand on one leg if you close your eyes.
If you manage not to fall for 10 seconds with your eyes closed, you are doing very well!
Professor Dawn Skelton has shown that, with practice, you can reach a full minute on one leg with your eyes closed.
And once you’ve mastered the one-legged pose, you can continue to fine-tune your balance by doing tandem walks, in which you practice walking as if you’re on a tightrope, putting one foot in front of the other in a row. right. and tapping with the toe of one foot the heel of the other.
“Walk in reverse It’s also a really good balance challenge, ”Skelton explains, but warns,“ Be careful because you don’t know what’s behind you, and if you have to constantly turn your head you may feel dizzy. because your vestibular systems are overworking.
Standing on one leg is something simple that adapts to your daily routine. You can do this by brushing your teeth or watching TV, and it’s something that could really make a big difference in your life as you get older.
.
[ad_2]
Source link